Personal Project: Cars Toys
This post is a deviation of our regular posts on welearnphotography. From time to time, I will be offering an insight into my own photography and share the work that I do so as to help provide other means of teaching this craft.
About a year ago, I was sitting at home looking at some of my son's favorite toys, his die-cast metal Cars toys that he received for Christmas. My son loves these things. No doubt, he probably had respect for the fact that he could bash them into things and they wouldn't easily fall apart. In any case, I wanted to test out some new lighting gear that I had, so I waited until he went down for a a nap and decided to photograph his favorite toys. I didn't have an end purpose at the time, but as each image showed up on my camera, I saw the potential for a print project: Wall art. My son's room was badly in need of something to call attention to his interests, and I couldn't think of anything better. I took these photos of his toys, and put them aside, with an idea that later, I would print them and frame them for his wall.
The bad news, was that it took a year to get to the printing stage. The good news, is that they are finally done! Below are some shots of his toys (the 3 prints that he picked out from the set) in their frames and ready to hang on his wall.
I brought these to work to photograph the frames. I did this, because I
wanted to use a boom stand to light the frames from above, and to
eliminate glare on the glass. The shot was taken, using a single 400w
studio light in a 24" softbox on it's lowest power setting. I shot all of the photos with an 85mm f/1.8 Canon lens at f/8 and 1/160sec @ISO 160. Minor sharpening and contrast adjustments were done with software.
In conclusion, I am really happy with this project. It feels good to be able to give directly back to my kids, something memorable and tangible with my photography.
About a year ago, I was sitting at home looking at some of my son's favorite toys, his die-cast metal Cars toys that he received for Christmas. My son loves these things. No doubt, he probably had respect for the fact that he could bash them into things and they wouldn't easily fall apart. In any case, I wanted to test out some new lighting gear that I had, so I waited until he went down for a a nap and decided to photograph his favorite toys. I didn't have an end purpose at the time, but as each image showed up on my camera, I saw the potential for a print project: Wall art. My son's room was badly in need of something to call attention to his interests, and I couldn't think of anything better. I took these photos of his toys, and put them aside, with an idea that later, I would print them and frame them for his wall.
The bad news, was that it took a year to get to the printing stage. The good news, is that they are finally done! Below are some shots of his toys (the 3 prints that he picked out from the set) in their frames and ready to hang on his wall.
The frames were purchased at Ikea for around 3 dollars each (including the matte). The prints were ordered from Mpix.com for about 99 cents each (5x7's).
In conclusion, I am really happy with this project. It feels good to be able to give directly back to my kids, something memorable and tangible with my photography.
